How Long to Develop An Hour of Training?

Estimation is one of the more challenging aspects of project management, and is central to project success. Formally or informally, most project work is tracked and evaluated against the expectations set up front for cost and time required. Inaccurate estimates can have serious consequences for an organization, the project team—and the project manager.

The typical PM learns two things about estimation early in his or her career:

It’s a bad idea to offer estimates before you have enough information to properly scope the project, because once people hear numbers coming out of your mouth, they will remember them forever.

People will insist you do it anyway.

Good practice says that estimates, especially early ones, should be given as a range, with the width of the range set by the uncertainty of the estimate. Even then, you still need a starting point. Enter the rule of thumb. For those times when you need a ballpark figure to gauge the size of a training project, many managers and organizations have history doing similar work they can draw upon to get started.

But what if you are just getting started as a training manager, or have never developed a particular type of training before? What if you want to gauge your personal experience against industry norms? Back in 2003, Karl Kapp conducted a survey of learning professionals, and wrote an article that compiled estimates for developing of an hour of training using various techniques. Kapp and Robyn Defelice have recently updated the original article with findings from a new survey. The initial response pool isn’t huge (47 participants), so the results should probably be used cautiously, but it’s some of the best public data I’ve seen, and the new article covers a broader range of development approaches. The authors note that estimate duration for several training types of development have increased since the 2003 survey, and suggests that issues with scope and change management—in both the project management and organizational sense—may be responsible.

It’s also worth noting that the authors are continuing to collect estimates, so if you’d like to contribute to the study, follow the link to the article above and scroll down, or visit the survey directly here.